sky lantern festival, oh and my cat is an fbi agent

Now that I've finished blogging about my amazing trip to Thailand and Cambodia, it's time for some Taiwan updates.  I've got about 4 weekends worth of material to catch up on.


First weekend: Lantern festival in Pingxi. Lantern festivals take place all over Taiwan, including Taipei of course. However, we wanted to go to the most famous Lantern Festival, so a group of friends and I took a bus for 45 minutes or so to Pingxi. Thousands of people crowded the tiny streets; so many people wanted a piece of the Pingxi action that we literally stood at a stand-still for about 45 minutes trying to buy our own lanterns. It didn't help that the president of Taiwan visited Pingxi to deliver a speech and set off an enormous lantern, meaning tons of people wanted to watch and take pictures.

 The president's lantern is the big white one with the dragon drawn on it.


Here's how sky lanterns work. You buy this huge plastic lantern for about 5 USD. They're almost as tall as I am. You then can paint your wishes for 2012 on each of the four sides. 

Since I've been studying Chinese at a language school for the past few months, I now can write some Chinese characters. The Taiwanese people's lanterns looked so cool with their characters that I thought I'd try too. This is what my Chinese translates to, "I am Robin. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10." Pretty poetic, I think. 

 I tried an English wish for another side. 

You then light the bottom on fire and the sky lantern floats out of your hands into the sky, where it floats on for miles. They had launch times, when hundreds of people all set their lanterns off all at once and the sky is filled with the lanterns.

Since it is a festival in Taiwan, of course the streets were filled with many yummy (and not-so-yummy) and cheap street food.

Weekend two: Abe, my friend from Michigan, turned 23 and we celebrated by dressing in 20s clothes for the "Abestravaganza" and partying a bit too hard.

Weekend three: My Chinese class decided to hold class at a KTV (what the Taiwanese call Kareoke) lounge. We were supposed to practice a Chinese song so we could sing it. I chose this song since it was slow and easy.

However, after listening to it 235872340598 times and only remembering three lines, I decided to screw it and sing a fast song that had a few lines in English.

I butchered it, of course, but then just sang Britney Spears the rest of the night, so it was okay.

 Weekend four, aka this past weekend: We had a 5 day weekend this weekend, as it's Tuesday and I still haven't been to work. Unfortunately, the Taiwanese government says because we got two days off this week, EVERYONE has to work on Saturday. Kids have to go to school like it's a normal day. Seriously? That makes 0 sense. Anyway, it rained basically the entire weekend so I spent much of my time in my apartment. It's okay though, because I was super productive. I accomplished great feats like eating an entire box of cereal without moving off my bed, wearing sweat pants every day, and taking pictures with my one-eyed cat, Potato. 

Also, I took pictures of her in a FBI jacket.

As I mentioned up above, I can now write a few characters in Chinese. My three month class is finished as of yesterday. I'm pretty much fluent now and have daily philosophical discussions with the Taiwanese in my newly acquired language skills, such as, "Do you have a sandwich? I have three sandwiches," "Miss Wang rides the bus to work," "The chicken is fresh today," "What is your honorable surname?" I'm taking a month off of Chinese and then possibly looking into doing a one-on-one tutor later. 
  

I mostly just know the pinyin, or the romanization of the Chinese characters, so I'll end with this: Zàijiàn wǒ de péngyǒu! (Goodbye my friends!)

nom nom nom

As I've mentioned before, the Taiwanese LOVE taking pictures of their food. That is something that I've never seen people do before and didn't even know was a "thing" until I got here. One Saturday I dragged myself to McDonalds for some greasy hangover cure and saw the Taiwanese chick sitting next to me taking a picture of her nuggets. SERIOUSLY?! 

Anyway, something I once scoffed at has now become one of my habits. I think it's acceptable to do so when vacationing to new places. At least that's what I've been telling myself. Without further ado, I give you my food pictures.

Thailand

 Thai beer, Chang. Spring rolls. Pineapple rice (with furry stuff?) served in a friggen' pineapple.

Coconut chicken curry. Spicy salad. Pad Thai. Cashew chicken.

Dessert: coconut ice cream. 

???? Something I bought from a dude on the train for 20 cents. 

Pad Thai with extra spice.

Cambodia

 Pina colada in a coconut.

 Chicken and rice on my side. Sweet and sour chicken on Victoria's side.

 Red curry chicken.

 Chicken spring rolls.

My first (of about 3) buffet plate stuffed full. Beef noodles. Veggies. Spring rolls. Bbq chicken. Some unidentifiable and not so delicious objects. Fried banana (see next picture). Fried carrot.

They had a lot of weird fried items, like this fried banana. I'm not sure if that's typical in Cambodia or just of the buffet we were at. 

 Cambodia's beer, Angkor.

It's no wonder I gained almost 5 pounds on my 2 week long trip....

Phuket: Lady boy nip slips, Phi Phi Princess, dinosaurs, and Asian Elvis

Thursday, January 26th

We awoke early in our hostel in Phuket to take a boat tour of Phi Phi island. Before I begin to explain this trip, let's take a moment to reflect on the awkward names of cities in Thailand. First of all, there's obviously Bangkok. Phuket looks like it could be pronounced as "fuck-it", but is actually pronounced "poo-ket". Then, off of Phuket island is a smaller island called Phi Phi island that is pronounced "pee pee". Yes, I absolutely bought a shirt that says " I <3 Phi Phi".

A van picked us up from our hostel and drove us to the dock. Although Phuket is an island, it's HUGE! You would hardly know it actually was an island. We got on a giant boat filled with many other tourists, mostly from Europe and China.

 

The last few pictures were taken at the same place Leonardo DiCaprio's movie, The Beach, was filmed. We stopped and anchored the boat to go snorkeling, then later anchored again and took kayaks out to Monkey Island, where we fed monkeys. 


Once we got on Phi Phi island, we ate lunch at "Phi Phi Princess", which is probably the best name for a dining establishment OF ALL TIME. Oh, and then a monkey in a diaper sat on me.

Once our boat tour finished late afternoon, we booked tickets to see Simon Cabaret. Don't forget which country I traveled in - Thailand. So, was this a normal Cabaret? Ha. Absolutely not. It was a LADY BOY Cabaret. All dancers were dudes... or at least were dudes at one point.

ALL of those people in the picture were dudes at some point in their life. Well, minus me, of course. The cabaret itself wasn't that good - many of the dances were kind of lame and they of course lip synced the entire thing. There was a performance of the classic song, "Barbie Girl", that brought the audience to tears with it's intricate beauty and symbolism.  One ... person (? I'm not sure whether to label them men or women...some of them still were pretty man-like) had one of those halfsies outfits where he had half a wig, half a dress, half girl- makeup, and half a suit and half short hair. He'd turn around to switch between the man and woman part. After a bit, the "he" half started groping the "she" half and the "she" half swatted away the "he" half. Mindfuck.


Here's a youtube video of the same song and performance, though this person isn't Thai (Vietnamese, I'm guessing). It's basically the same act.

There was a nip-slip in one of the acts. Is it inappropriate if a person, who once was a man and now has  breast implants, shows his/her nipple? Is it dude nipple or lady nipple? I'm sure this is something that Confucius, Plato, and other great philosophers have philosophized very philosophically about for a long time.


Friday, January 27th
After our ladyboy cabaret and boat tour, we decided to have a relaxing day on the beach. We rented a scooter and drove around the island. We ran out of gas, so we had to purchase gas out of a bottle on the side of the road. Interesting...

After the beach, we went to the most amazing restaurant (better than Phi Phi Princess, if you can believe that)... DINOSAUR THEMED RESTAURANT. OMGSOAWESOME.

Unfortunately, the food was not dinosaur shaped. Actually, it was just super expensive. The waiters did have to wear Fred Flinstone costumes though.

On the way to the dinosaur restaurant, we drove past another restaurant with an Elvis impersonator singing. An ASIAN Elvis impersonator. HECK YES.

Saturday, January 28th
We spent our final full day in Phuket on another organized boat trip and tour. We first stopped at some temples and caves, where surprise! Lots of (apparently rabies infested?) monkeys!

Also, some Thai people apparently keep monkeys as pets...? I want one!

More boat tour pictures:

The last few pictures were taken at "James Bond Island." It's called that because the movie, "The Man With the Golden Gun" was filmed here. Check it out:

Sunday, January 29th
Our last day in Phuket. We didn't have time to do much else than get on our plane and fly back to Bangkok. We decided to spend out last night in Thailand partying it up in Asia's notorious "sin city". I have to say, the night life is much tamer than I thought - no crazy parties (that we saw), no lady boys... just a bunch of 50 year old white dudes with their 20 year old Thai wives sitting around the dance floor. 


Monday, January 30th
We flew back to Taiwan. WAHHHHH. This could possibly be my last Asian vacation while I'm here, so I'm glad I had a great time.

I just pet a f*@#ing tiger

Chinese new year part 3


Monday, January 23rd
After an amazing time in Cambodia, the time arrived for us to come back to Thailand. We again had to take the trip using a bus, though this time one of our 3$/night hostel's workers arranged our trip with a "cousin" of his, ie., yet another questionable "scam". The cost was cheap, however, so I suppose it made up for being transferred part of the way on the back of a pick-up truck and stopping at multiple friend's restaurants and stands. Traveling from Siem Reap back to Bangkok took basically the entire day so nothing exciting really happened. 


Minus, of course, for this gem of a window sticker on our van:

Geesh, this is the last time I travel through this company. No sex, no guns, AND no rams?!? WHO DO THEY THINK THEY ARE WITH THESE DEMANDS!?


Tuesday, January 24th
Since we had seen all we wanted to see in Bangkok, there really was no point to staying and sightseeing there again. We decided to take a day trip in Ayutthaya, located less than 2 hours (and a 1$ train ticket) away. We had done very little research on this city and basically just decided to show up and see what we could do for the day. We luckily picked an AWESOME city to visit! This place has WAY more to see than Bangkok does, so make sure you make a day trip here if you end up in Thailand.


Like Angkor Wat, Ayutthaya is a World Heritage sight filled with many beautiful temples. Ayutthaya, though, is an actual city with temples sprinkled throughout. The Angkor Wat temples are blocked off so you must pay to enter the actual site, whereas you could take pictures from the outside of the temples in Ayutthaya as a pedestrian. Some temples you had to pay to get in (usually not more than a dollar or two) but for some reason we didn't have to pay for many.


At the train station, the tuk-tuk drivers pounced on us to hire them for the day. We picked the MOST baller ride of ALL TIME:

I know, I know; you're beyond jealous.


Feeling even more badass in our sweet ride, we hopped off at our first temple site. I don't know the names of where I went, but I'm sure you don't care. The first site started off normal enough.

Seems typical, right? We ventured off behind some of these very normal sites until I saw a very large rooster. Obviously, we stopped to take a picture. 

We laughed to ourselves about the rooster and continued walking. Look! Another rooster! Hilarious, right? Wrong. The longer we walked, the more rooster figurines we encountered until we were up to about 50 roosters. WHAT? We then walked behind a building and our jaws dropped when we saw this.

THOUSANDS. F*&^ING THOUSANDS OF ROOSTER F*@#$ING EVERYWHERE.

Including some blinged-out sparkle roosters, which no rooster collection is complete without.

Why the roosters, you may ask? I have no idea whatsoever. And I'm not going to look into it either. Some things in life, such as why we stumbled upon thousands of rooster figurines in Thailand, should remain a mystery.


We said adieu to the roosters and left for the second site. Surprise! Some vendors offered us (very expensive) elephant taxi rides through the temple site. HECK YES.

EPIC EPIC EPIC. Oh and did I mention epic?!

As we were walking out, they asked us if we'd like to take a picture with a tiger. Hmmm... let me me think -ohfuckyesiwantapicturewithafuckingtiger.

Awesome.


Although the previous events amazingness already made for a fantastic day of traveling, the day was young. We visited so many more beautiful temples until the intense heat took it's toll and we tuk-tuked backed to Bangkok. 

If you look at the last picture, you can see I'm cartwheeling through the ancient ruins of the Thai temples. I didn't wait in line to do it; the temples were actually THAT empty. Why? I have no idea. Each temple site only had a handful of tourists snapping pictures, compared with the thousands upon thousands visiting the Angkor Wat. Obviously, the Angor Wat temples are more beautiful and more famous, however, the temples in Ayyuthaya were really a hidden gem among Thailand's huge tourism industry. If you visit Bangkok, check this city out on a day trip. It's got much more to offer than Bangkok does.


Wednesday, January 25th
Our flight from Bangkok to Phuket, an island south of Thailand, wasn't until late in the afternoon, so we wandered around the city trying to waste time. Really, it was difficult to find things to do in the city. The flight took a little over an hour and we checked into our hostel in Phuket too late to do anything except eat dinner and go to bed early to prepare for a big sightseeing tour we booked for the next day.


I'll put Phuket in another blog post as to not make this post longer than it already is.